


We Invented the Internet: E-Mail

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheppard is supposed to be the boss of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Invented the Internet: E-Mail

  
They gave Sheppard Colonel Sumner's laptop.

He'd had one of his own, but the Colonel's has the mission's classified notes on it, and by shuffling, they freed up Sheppard's laptop for the research staff, who for some reason needed about two computers per person and six more for every lab.  System hogs.  He remembers them from college, the guys who'd march into a computer lab and shove all the not-science students (hell, all the not-hard-science students) away from the keyboards, drive them from the room, and then set up a six-day simulation that ended with the university mainframe crashing and the world's greatest fractal dragon erased in administrative fury.

Sheppard could have told them that would happen.

Anyway.

Sumner's laptop had a bunch of pre-written e-mails ready to go out.  Orders regarding who-where, and shifts and assignments, and personnel policy.  One reminding everyone that fraternization among officers had been shown by experience (some of them were old enough to remember the first Iraq war, and they should keep that in mind) to severely damage morale and was therefore severely discouraged.

It amounted to, "If you must fuck someone, go fuck the scientists.  They'll be easy, if nothing else."

Sheppard didn't send the e-mail.  It was stupid and insulting and probably wouldn't have done any good.

Then Bates came to him and made a case for giving exactly that order.  People got lonely and stressed, and they had sex because it's a human need, but then someone (always) got killed, and the partner collapsed emotionally, and his unit broke down around him.  They could re-build, of course, but it took time and made everyone miserable.  More miserable.

Also, it was hell on the chain of command.

It was a standing policy for all the armed services.  They just needed to remind people.

So Sheppard sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and sent out the e-mail.  Sumner's e-mail, signed by Sumner, with just an initial from Sheppard at the bottom.

It was only supposed to go to the Marines, but the science team ran the server (of course they did), and nothing stayed as confidential as it should have been.

Utterly anonymous e-mails answered him.  Some of them used the words "cold day in hell" and some used the words "brain the size of a small planet" and some of them sent naked pictures of the science team, and a few of them just said "ha ha ha."

Sheppard understood about then that if he was going to get laid anytime in the foreseeable future, he'd have to look off-world.  The Marines were pissed, as well as forbidden, and the scientists were offended.  Huffy.

And since he was the guy who sent out the order, it was all on him.  Of course.

*

He should have known nasty e-mails were just the knee-jerk reaction to the issue at hand.  Once people stepped away from the laptops, *that* was when he had to worry.

The Atlantis laundry system dyed all his underwear pink.  His meals all seemed to contain the MRE version of oysters.  His inbox filled up with some fairly exotic pornography, accompanied by notes that he and his might as well enjoy it, as it was the closest to imaginative, dirty, dirty sex he and his were going to get.

The Marines were getting restless.  You'd never believe these guys had been posted to other godforsaken places under the same orders.  Even if most of the godforsaken places, Antarctica aside, at least allowed access to prostitutes.

They needed to find the M4X-whatever world of red light districts.  Fast.

The scientists, on the other hand, didn't *get* restless.  They just loaded up on caffeine and then got to work, secure in the knowledge that he wasn't the boss of them

They still took time to get him.  Creative, lateral thinking led them from Sheppard's Texas roots to Full Metal Jacket to

well

when he walked into the mess, an Ancient, acoustically-perfect sound system belted out "Beers, Steers, and Queers".

Every damn time.

The song was almost six minutes long.  And it started out with *that* clip from "Deliverance".

It was starting to sound suggestive.  He blamed the porn they were sending him.

*

He gave up.

Bates would probably disapprove of him forever, but he had to live with these people.

It only took one small e-mail: *I take it back.  Have sex with whoever you want.*

Anonymously, in return, *and?*

*and the science team is neither desperate nor sex-starved*

One more message.  No text, just a blurry little .avi file.

Not a lot of detail, but it was definitely Elizabeth.  In the shower.

He saved it to disk.

 

[8 June 2005]


End file.
